Michael Kamarck & Pascal Bécotte — Global Talent Trends in Pharma and Biotech Technical Operations: A Perfect Storm

The bluEPrint by Executive Platforms

At the most recent edition of the Pharma Manufacturing World Summit held May 15-16, 2023, in Boston, we spoke with Michael Kamarck, a senior industry executive, and Pascal Bécotte, the Managing Director of Russell Reynolds Associates, about the most serious challenge threatening to bottleneck the otherwise very bright future of medicine. For a number of reasons explored in both this interview and in this recent blog post, there are not enough qualified people to fill all the top jobs that need to be done, and this is not something that is going to be fixed in a day or even a few years without the industry working together in a decisive and unprecedented way to collectively develop its rising Top Talent in the technical operations space into the senior leaders that Small Molecule, Large Molecule, and especially the emerging Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products sectors cannot do without.
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Michael Kamarck was the Chief Technology Officer at Vir. Previously, he was senior vice president of Global Vaccines and Biologics Manufacturing and president of Merck BioVentures where he was responsible for the establishment of Merck’s global biosimilars business.

Prior to joining Merck BioVentures, Dr. Kamarck held positions of increasing responsibility in Biotechnology and Vaccines Operations at Wyeth, including leading the development of the global biotechnology network with $3.5 billion of capital investment. While at Wyeth, he also was responsible for global technical operations for all of the Company’s businesses. Dr. Kamarck began his career in biotechnology and pharmaceutical research at Bayer AG.

Dr. Kamarck graduated from Oberlin College where he currently serves as a Trustee. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and 20 issued patents. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Science from University College Dublin.
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Pascal Bécotte leads Canadian operations for Russell Reynolds Associates and is also a member of the firm’s global Executive Committee. He is a key member of the Healthcare Sector where he advises clients across the globe on their overall talent strategy, particularly with respect to leadership assessment, succession planning and the recruitment of directors, CEOs and other senior executives. More specifically Pascal specializes in Biotech and Pharma Technical Operations including Process Development, Manufacturing, Quality, Engineering and Supply Chain leadership across modalities.